View allAll Photos Tagged fall2020
This Halloween spook haunts the neighborhood. I'd hesitate to call it fun-loving, but at least it doesn't seem to mean any harm.
Taken for the "Smile on Saturday" theme of 10/31/2020: SPOOKY FUN.
The naturally pinkish tones on the stems of this grass were enhanced by the application of a "rouge" filter.
Day 307/366 of Project 365 (Monday, 2020 November 2 - 176th consecutive daily photo): We enjoyed clear blue skies all day today and were treated to this glorious sunset tonight.
Glass stopper atop a glass bottle.
Taken for the "Smile on Saturday" theme of 11/14/2020: IRIDESCENT.
The underside, showing pores, of a fruiting body growing on an oak branch that has fallen to the ground.
"My father literally fought his entire life
to ensure the inclusion of all people
because he understood that we were intertwined
and connected together in humanity."
~ Bernice King ~
Dedicated to Marilyn, AKA cowgirl, in deepest sympathy.
This bumblebee happily gathers and eats on the late-blooming New England Aster. This is a key fall flower for surviving nectar- and pollen-gathering insects, although this bumblebee may just be working for himself at this late date - the queens have moved on, hibernating until next spring, and his role in feeding the hive has expired. Many bumblebees die at work - they simply run out of steam performing a job that no longer serves anyone. That is, I suppose, what drones do.
On a brighter note, the lovely Aster is a member of the Compositae family, which means, in its case, that each of the purple things that look like petals is actually a flower - the ray flowers, as they are called, and then each of the orange-yellow units in the centre is also a flower - the disc flowers. This family, which includes everything from sunflowers to dandelions, is a pretty fascinating study. Suffice it to say here that there is a lot for a well-intentioned (if doomed) bumblebee to do here.
Nothing went to waste during the course of this shoot. If anything, a melted ice cream bar is even more flavorful than one that is frozen.
Flickr Lounge - Weekend Theme - Food Glorious Food
my goal yesterday was to catch the wing tip iridescent greens on the Woodstork flying into the marsh!
Kamaole Beach I park, in South Kihei area, was one of our favorite evening spots to watch the gorgeous Maui sunsets and add some colors to our vacation.
Spending some days with a flock of about fifteen Wigeons on a brief lay-over in Ottawa was the first time I started really working on water birds. The Wigeon were calm, feeding in a focused way, and unfazed by a few early morning photographers.
The short bill on the Wigeons gives them more torque when they grab vegetation from the Lake bottom, and as a consequence they are a bit more determined when they feed. That allows a person to get low and close, which turn out to be essential components of most any photography.
They are a dabbling duck, but on deeper water they will steal food from diving ducks. Their presence at Mud Lake, and their willingness to tolerate a few early-rising humans, was a function of the abundant shoots and leaves in the shallow edges of the Lake.
I always like to see the green stripe on the wings.
Sorry New Hampshire & Vermont - New Jersey is winner this year!
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This bird showed up one day with an adult, and the two spent a week or so exploring the best fishing spots on the lake. Many great images were secured in the early days of their visit by some keen birders/photographers, as the birds boldly pursued young catfish and ignored people with cameras.
And then the adult’s ‘it’s time to get moving south’ instincts kicked in, and it was gone. The juvenile, distinctive in a number of ways including not being pied-billed, hung around for a couple more weeks on its own. Feeding wasn’t a problem: there are some shallow warm pockets in the lake that the catfish hang out in until quite late. It became more elusive,or reclusive, and so one had to be out pretty early to find and photograph the bird. I am lying on the roots of a tree, hidden behind a stump, out almost in the water. The bird glanced in my direction as I took this, and then continued fishing.
I am always a bit uncomfortable with these opportunities. The questions were twofold: was the bird aware of the risk posed by the Hawks that hung around the lake, and would it escape them?; and would it eventually get going south before the lake froze over?
One of the challenges posed by these surprise visitors is the recognition that it may be the case that you are having a chance to photograph the bird because it is failing to engage in some species-specific behaviour, a failure that will ultimately be fatal.
The messiness of migration and reproduction often overlap, and the success rates for most birds are brutally low. Even the Hawks are lucky to see one in ten young survive three years. It is just nature, but it is harder reconcile when a relative oddity shows up, at least for me.
As blustery afternoon winds try their best to dislodge reluctant milkweed seeds from the security of their pod, exquisite geometric patterns are formed--almost like a ghostly white flower.
“The best way to treat obstacles is to use them as stepping-stones. Laugh at them, tread on them, and let them lead you to something better.” - Enid Blyton
What’s the plan for today? It’s 5am here in the midwest and we are getting ready to catch the last later sunrise before the daylight savings time kicked in tomorrow. It’s also Halloween here in the US so happy trick or treating today! I’m still running with the fall theme here. What do you think?
Yes, these tiny (4-6 mm) seedpods of the Stickseed plant are considered fruits. But woe be to the hiker who encounters them in the field, as these burs readily stick to clothing, from which they can be an incredible nuisance to remove.
Hope you are having a great day already? We hit it off last night with this scene. I’ve been chasing fall all week and due to traffic we couldn’t make it to the originally planed spot so we ended up at Montrose beach. This light didn’t last for long but it was beautiful! What do you think?
Mists of damp heat rise up out of the fields around the sleeping abbey. The whole valley is flooded with moonlight and I can count the southern hills beyond the watertank, and almost number the trees of the forest to the north. Now the huge chorus of living beings rises up out of the world beneath my feet: life singing in the watercourses, throbbing in the creeks and the fields and the trees, choirs of millions and millions of jumping and flying and creeping things. And far above me the cool sky opens upon the frozen distance of the stars.
-Thomas Merton, The Sign of Jonas (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1953; New York: Octagon, 1983), 360; hereafter SJ.
Follow with your eye the vast tremor that runs, from horizon to horizon, through city and forest. Observe, throughout all life, the human effervescence that works like leaven in the world—the song of the birds and their plumage—the wild hum of insects—the tireless blooming of the flowers—the unremitting work of the cells—the endless labours of the seeds germinating in the soil. I am the single radiance by which all this is aroused and within which it is vibrant.
-Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Writings in Time of War, trans. René Hague (New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 194-195
The fall migration was much richer in variety here in Ottawa than the spring, northbound migration had been. Weather conditions and other factors shape these things, and we are excited when there is a lot of activity and variety - so the spring was a bit bleak (pandemic influence was a factor for sure) and the fall picked up a lot of spirits among birders.
I was able to get out fairly often, and was introduced to the subtleties and challenges of post-breeding colours and challenging identifications. Since I began using a camera for the birding purpose of post-sighting identification I returned to my roots, in a way, especially with the Bay-breasted/Blackpoll nuances. I had never seen either bird in the fall, or in Ottawa (at least to my knowledge) and the differences in the field can be a bit tricky. This bird retained some traces of colour on its flanks and was a lot easier than some of the other birds, and once I learned to start with the feet (not always a guarantee, but Blackpolls tend to have yellow/orange feet) I was getting better with each outing.
While it is true that the fall birds can seem somehow faded, they are quite beautiful in their own right. My friend and mentor Paul Jones, who helped me a lot in figuring some of the field marks out, speaks very energetically about the beauty of the subtler plumage and the very active fall helped me to see some of the range of that beauty.
Had a fun trip to Jasper yesterday. Stayed away from the people, and found my own cranes to hang with. With over 25K at last count there were plenty around.
A tall, stately white wader of quiet waters. Common, especially in the south, it may wander far to the north in late summer. Nearly wiped out in the United States in the late 1800s, when its plumes were sought for use in fashion, the Great Egret made a comeback after early conservationists put a stop to the slaughter and protected its colonies; as a result, this bird became the symbol of the National Audubon Society.
(They just left to the wintering grounds and I miss them already!)
This fall was the first time I became aware of some lingering Fox Sparrows, who joined a few lingering Hermit Thrushes in the woods. I love Fox Sparrows - the behaviour, the deep rufous plumage - but they are notoriously skittish and often well-hidden, so hard to photograph. And they typically blow through Ottawa in a couple of days.
The birds that stayed around for a couple of weeks were enjoying the mild fall, and the abundant wildflower and wild grass seeds. They scoured the areas off the trails, with their awesome double-footed kick back lifting leaves and revealing insects and seeds beneath them. They were almost always mixed in to a small flock of White-throated Sparrows.
I had a couple of approaches to trying to photograph them, mostly based on observation. The first was to lie down on the ground in an area that the White-throated Sparrows were occupying, waiting for the Fox Sparrows to join them. That worked, and I will post a few of those images later.
The second was to watch where they flushed to, if they were disturbed by squirrels or people. I would go there and try to find angles with the light. This image came from that strategy. I like the colours in the leaves and the background, which seem to work well with the bird’s colouring, and the early light. And I don’t dislike the leaf strategically placed in front of the bird (!!), or the unusually erect pose.
The key to both approaches was to be out early, as, like my teenaged son, Fox Sparrows are late risers. Already being there minimized the likelihood of scaring them away.
It was fun to spend time with them, and to get some decent images. An onslaught of work late in the fall meant that I never got the chance to review and post things I had taken in the fall, so I am mixing them in now with some winter birds. Warblers will be here in two months - I better post last fall’s before they arrive.
Looking forward to having some images in the upcoming exhibition 'Field Notes - Observations on Climate Change' at the Helson Gallery in Halton Hills. Opening on November 18 and running till February 2021.
If you're looking for something to do:
www.haltonhills.ca/en/explore-and-play/HelsonGallery-Fall...
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Day 329/366 of Project 365 (Tuesday, 2020 November 24 - 198th consecutive daily photo): Affectionally known as birdwatching when I took up the hobby oh so many years ago, those who engage in the sport have since adopted the more masculine-sounding term birder.
"Life is simple
Eat. Sleep. Bird."
By chance, this was photographed from the back deck on the morning of our first serious snowfall of the season.
Belted kingfishers have proportionally larger heads than most bird species of a similar size. The head is fully feathered and features a tall prominent crest. The feathers on the occiput and nape are slightly taller than the center of the crest, resulting in a doubly pointed crest. Their bills are heavy and tapered to a point providing them with an advantage when diving head-first into the water for prey.
A tin box with hinged lid and printed floral design that held one pound (0.45 kg) net weight of candy.
Close-up of a house designed to attract bees. The idea is that bees will find this utterly irrestible and nest in the circular holes drilled in the blocks of wood. I can't help but wonder if these houses--which are sold in garden stores everywhere--are more attractive to humans than they are to the bees they are supposedly designed to attract.
Day 309/366 of Project 365 (Wednesday, 2020 November 4 - 178th consecutive daily photo): Three trees are huddled together, as if for companionship, along a fence row between agricultural fields at sunset.
This glass ornament hanging from a living room window picks up and reflects the colors of autumn foliage in the backyard.
It was an unusually warm Fall Sunday in New York City, which was very inviting for people to enjoy the outdoors. This image was taken in the little plaza located at the corner of 14th Street and Hudson Street, in Chelsea area. The Our Lady of Guadalupe at St. Bernard church can be seen in the background.
The late Representative John Lewis put this store on the map by leading a sit-down strike at the lunch counter. Students from Fisk University sat down at the counter and stayed there waiting to be served. It is slated to become a civil rights museum.
www.americanbar.org/groups/communications_law/publication...